I thought...I would grow out of such episodes over time...As I got older, the attacks and periods of depression only grew more frequent and intense...

For those inexperienced with depression, its not simply a few bad days or fleeting moments of unhappiness, but a constant, oppressive feeling of hopelessness. It interferes with your day-to-day life. It was difficult to focus or do anything. Some days it would take me hours to get out of the house simply because I couldnt summon the will to do anything. Several times a week, I would spontaneously begin sobbing; sometimes devolving into a curled ball of tears as I waged and inner battle I thought I could never win. My grades and personal relationships suffered. Eventually, I worried about my safety from my own self as I became plagued with destructive and even suicidal thoughts.

...I share because with all of the advancements weve made in being understanding, there are still too many stigmas associated with depression and anxiety, particularly in Utah and the LDS culture.

Utah has often had one of the highest rates of anti-depressant use in the country. Some have blamed these numbers on LDS culture...

Many times clinical depression is the result chemical imbalances in the brain...There is no reason to be ashamed of depression  or the treatment. Shame and fear only compound depression, making it more isolating...

Depression thrives in isolation...

Even in depression, there is hope.

I have been in counseling for about a year. Two months ago, I began taking a low dose of Prozac. Both have helped immensely...

From the BYU article: ...there are still too many stigmas associated with depression and anxiety, particularly in Utah and the LDS culture. Utah has often had one of the highest rates of anti-depressant use in the country. Some have blamed these numbers on LDS culture...

Depression is never anything easy to fight through: Dealing with past "issues" that have been stuffed. Frustration, often relationally-based. Emptiness. Loss of hope. Feeling overwhelmed without the needed energy. And then the repetitive thought cycles and feelings of isolation, and for so many Mormon women -- just the opposite -- always "on display" in the "worthiness" comparison "game."

(For more on the "on display" aspect, see: )

There is help.

Christian counselors are out there. And the true Christian Gospel is one of hope, empowerment, and is anti-legalistic.

About three years, ago, a Truth in Love campaign included billboards in their outreach toward Lds women, particularly overstressed and depressed Lds women. (See RELIGION: Group targets LDS women)

Per this linked article from the Rexburg Standard Journal (Rexburg, Idaho is "base" for BYU-Idaho): Cares preaches that God's forgiveness and blessings are available to everyone for free if they simply accept the "good news of God," that "we are already perfect and worthy in God's sight." So the question is, are Mormon women actually plagued with guilt and stress because of their religion...? The Speaking the Truth in Love campaign is different from many anti-Mormon groups in that most typically seek to argue or dispute facts regarding Mormon history or doctrine...the Truth in Love campaign seeks to fellowship and love Mormons into accepting their views that Mormonism will lead to "eternal death" rather than "eternal life." One reason for the change in tactic may be because of recent scientific studies by Mental Health America and Express Scripts, a national drug distribution company. The report ranks Utah as the most depressed state in the country and shows that Utah residents are prescribed antidepressant drugs at twice the national average. Researchers have drawn conclusions that the large LDS population was partially to blame for the high levels of depression in the state.

If you go to this post I did a while back, you can see all the original sources for what is below: Sociology of Utah

I provided links to first two headlines below...plus several others [wherever you see "source headline"]: * Two Studies Find Depression Widespread in Utah* Utah leads the nation in rates of depression * And referenced where Utah has the most anti-depressant use, especially in women: Study Finds Utah Leads Nation in Antidepressant Use. Some point to the pressures of Mormonism, especially for women, to explain the surprising findings. [Source urls: http://www.usu.edu/psycho101/lectures/chp2methods/study.html http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/03/eveningnews/main510918.shtml ]

Other related depression and suicide Utah anecdotes: * Utah, which a 2007 report said had the country's highest rate of nonmedical painkiller abuse. Source headline: Utah has new prescription for painkiller problem [Original link...click on first link above for linkage to actual article] And depression is not only a female issue in Utah:* Utah leads the nation in suicides among men aged 15 to 24: As of 5 years ago: Utah leads the nation in suicides among men aged 15 to 24...Utah also has the 11th highest suicide rate  14.3 deaths per 100,000 people  in the nation over all age groups, according to the most recent data from the American Association of Suicidology. Source headline: Deadly taboo: Youth suicide an epidemic that many in Utah prefer to ignore [Original link -- click on first link above for linkage to actual article] * Utah has the country's highest suicide rate for males between the ages of 14 and 25. That grim statistic is given a name and a troubled family in Carol Lynn Pearson's impassioned Facing East, now at the International City Theatre in Long Beach. Source url: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2285528/posts * For more than 10 years, 15- to 34-year-old males in Utah have had suicide rates markedly higher than those seen nationally. In fact, in the early to mid-1990s, suicide was the number one cause of death among 25- to 44-year-old men in the state and the second-leading cause of death among men aged 15 to 24. Source url: http://www.adherents.com/largecom/lds_LowSuicideRate.html

Now, this article actually says being active Lds "helps" in comparing rates. But this and another study I saw actually says when you compare the suicide rates for active Lds, inactive or less-active Lds, and non-Lds, the middle category is by far the highest:

In addition, per this article the risk of suicide among males aged 15 to 19 was three times higher among the less active church members than among their active peers, but the rate among the active youth was comparable to the national suicide rate.

So...this article not only says suicide risk is 3x higher among less active Lds than active Lds (among 15-19 yo), but that the suicide rate for active Lds 15-19 yo is no different than the national suicide rate!!!

One point that can be drawn from the above is that Mormonism is no barrier to the suicide rate for teens, and in fact, jeopardizes more teens (the less active ones)!

Since gangbangers have a much lower suicide rate than dentists or doctors, by your perverted logic we should turn doctors and dentists into gangbangers.

People who accept responsibility for their own actions tend to have higher suicide rates than those who blame somebody else.

There is a reason suicides are very high in responsibility taking cultures like the Japanese, the American Indian and Mormons and very low in blame somebody else cultures like those in Obama strongholds. However, I'll take my very remote risks of suicide in the former versus my relatively high chances of being murdered in the later.

6
posted on 02/06/2013 1:20:04 PM PST
by Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)

When you mix the "works righteous" heresy and the "prosperity gospel" tenets of the Salt Lake Sect of mormonism, it is possible to simultaneously work yourself temporarily blind AND believe you are eternally condemned at the same time.

I know, I was there.

I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind (in more ways than one) but now I see.

Jesus ALONE saves.

7
posted on 02/06/2013 1:22:03 PM PST
by SENTINEL
(Kneel down to God. Stand up to tyrants. STICK TO YOUR GUNS !)

Good links...except for the 4th one...from FAIR the Mormon apologetics site...which -- while conceding Utah leads the nation in antidepressant usage -- would somehow have you believe that the just over half a million non-Mormon women in Utah (40% of Utah is non-Mormon; about 20% would be female and non-Mormon...equaling about 575,000) are pretty much solely responsible for driving up the rating to #1.

That's Mormon apologists for you...They want to slough it off all upon non-Mormons!!!!

Sorry, Lds. You can't have 60% of a state's population; articles like this one and the Jan. 31, 2013 DesNews article featuring a study of 20 such Lds depressed women...and not have Mormons highly contributing to that #1 state rating.

Per Walker, citing former BYU History prof Michael Quinn: The hierarchy children are from the elite first families of Mormonism and these families started polygamy in America. Nearly all the Mormon founding families were relatives, so the first polygamists enjoyed relations to different degrees when the divine experiment began. The Twelve Apostles of Mormonism then acted to increase this familial relationship by marrying other relatives until in 1877, at the end of Brigham Youngs reign as Mormon Prophet and King, the polygamous hierarchy became l00% interrelated.[4] D. Michael Quinn, former Brigham Young University Professor, states The Mormon practice of polygamy enabled men to marry daughters, nieces, cousins, granddaughters and former wives of other General Authorities. [5] Did this practice affect my family and other Mormon pioneer families adversely, possibly even in other momentous ways?

Good question to ask...

Oh...and Walker mentions how when polygamy was being prosecuted in the 1880s and when it went underground in the 1890s and 1900s, the children of lesser known plural wives were oft' kept in the dark about their genetic kinship.

Hence, some may have wound up marrying blood relatives without even any realization of that!

Reading your comments is making me depressed. We are in the end times. A lot of people are depressed. Just look at whats happening in the world.

Then be WARNED!

To continue to read THIS reply will make you even FURTHER depressed!

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

24
posted on 02/07/2013 3:36:13 AM PST
by Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

Along with drinking alcohol, Joseph Smith sold, at the formerly Mormon-owned store called Zions Cooperative Mercantile, tea, coffee, and tobaccoall forbidden under the Word of Wisdom. On December 22, 1841, eight years after the Word of Wisdom was put in place, Joseph records that 13 wagons of groceries arrived at the new store, delivering, among other things, tea and coffee (History of the Church, 4:483). Also George Albert Smith remarked, We are doing a great business in tea, coffee and tobacco in the Co-operative Store (October 7, 1873, Journal of Discourses 16:238; also cited in Donna Morleys, A Christian Womans Guide to Understanding Mormonism, p. 223, Note #13).

26
posted on 02/07/2013 9:14:52 AM PST
by Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)

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